EU membership candidate Turkey will speed up reforms to improve its much-criticized human rights record and bring its legislation into line with the norms of the European Union, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said Thursday.
"The government attributes a great importance and priority to preparations for European Union membership," Ecevit told journalists after a cabinet meeting.
"The work to be carried out for harmonization with EU criteria should be accelerated ... and the cabinet will take all necessary measures for that," he added.
The EU executive commission is due in November to hammer out a partnership program determining the steps Ankara should take to entry to the pan-European body.
Turkey, declared a candidate for EU membership in December 1999, has come under criticism from the Union for dragging its feet on the reforms that should be carried out before accession talks can start.
Ecevit said a human rights board should be established within the prime minister's office "to conduct a more efficient control against human rights breaches, particularly torture, and ensure that violators are sanctioned."
"The preparations should include legal work regarding (the improvement of) the right to hold meetings and demonstrations ... Freedom of thought and expression should be improved," he said.
Ecevit called on parliament, which will re-convene in October, to give priority to draft bills aimed at harmonizing Turkish law with EU standards, particularly to amendments in the penal and civil codes.
Ecevit did not comment on the most controversial reforms that the EU is urging Ankara to carry out -- abolition of the death penalty, restructuring the military-dominated decision-making body the National Security Council, and recognition of cultural rights for Turkey's Kurdish minority.
He only said that "social and economic" measures should be activated in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast and east to "prepare the conditions for lifting the emergency rule" in four provinces in the region.
The area has been the scene of clashes between Turkish troops and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) since 1984 when the rebels took up arms for Kurdish self-rule.
The conflict has claimed some 36,500 lives, stalled economic activity in the already impoverished region and led to massive migration to Turkey's urban west.
Turkey's leading rights group, the Human Rights Association (IHD), said Wednesday that Turkey has to make modifications in some 420 articles embodied in nearly 80 laws in order to catch up with EU standards -- ANKARA (AFP)
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